Provenance: the rise of ‘somewhere’ in preference to ‘anywhere’

Globalisation has been a defining feature of the past forty years. But there are signs that more and more consumers prefer the local to the global.

Increasingly even big, mainstream brands feel the need to re-assure customers about the provenance of their ingredients.

One such is So Good – the biggest plant milk brand in Australia and New Zealand. So Good is produced by a company called Sanitarium, which also happens to be the number one in breakfast cereals in both countries. So you can expect Sanitarium to be in touch with the preferences of the mass-market consumer. And it’s clear that mass-market preferences now include some reassurance about where ingredients come from.

Unlike the many plant milks which use almonds from California – a state which accounts for 82% of the world’s almond production – So Good uses almonds from a local source.

“Made with Australian Murray Darling Region Almonds”, the pack states with the region clearly highlighted on a map.

That differentiates So Good from rival imported products, sets up the brand as ‘from here, not there’ and gets the attention of Australian and New Zealand consumers.

In more and more countries people want products that have a back-story about heritage and authenticity. They want something ‘a bit special’. And in a world where ingredients can be ‘from anywhere’, it’s re-assuring that they come ‘from somewhere”. And that somewhere, for more and more people, means their somewhere, the place they identify with and have a sense of belonging.